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Dartmoor Tick Watch
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Home | Collecting kit | Record sheet | Results | Disease statistics |
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Updates: | 10 Apr 10 | 31 Jul 08 | 12 Sep 08 | 1 Feb 10 | 10 Oct 09 | 27 Dec 11 | 21 Aug 08 | 13 Dec 09 | 9 Mar 16 | 10 Aug 09 |
Tip - press the browser Reload/Refresh icon when viewing the pages because some pages change frequently and you may be viewing an older version cached in your computer.
Final Report 2009 added to the web site.
The Notice of the talk at The Wharf, Tavistock, has been moved to the News page.
On a light note, I found this tick-related /
public health video on YouTube recently: The
Wood Tick Song
............. and "No" it is not me!
An interesting article about
ticks from Knock News, "Just
a Tick ..." was added 10 Apr 2011.
Tick Awareness Factsheet - Dartmoor National Park Authority
Dartmoor CAM - Ticks
page
More information about ticks
- the forerunner of this web site
Diagram showing
the relative size of tick stages
on the human finger nail.
Image reproduced with permission
from Lyme Disease Action
Click here to see a photograph of real-life life-cycle stages - at bottom of this page
Dartmoor Tick Watch
Mission Statement - what it's about
"To increase knowledge and understanding of ticks on Dartmoor and its margins, bearing in mind that they carry diseases that affect health and that various factors - e.g. milder winters, changing hill farming practice, fewer animals, less grazing, less trampling, less swaling, spreading bracken, greater leisure use etc. - may cause ticks to have a greater impact on human and animal health in the future."
Aims - aspirations
To run the project to the end of 2009.
To involve as many people as possible who encounter ticks.
To collect as many ticks as possible.
Objectives - deliverables
To identify the species of ticks that occur on and around Dartmoor.
To record geographical locations where ticks are found.
To record and measure life cycle stages through the year - larvae, nymphs and adults.
To investigate if larvae and nymphs occur late in the year.
To investigate if ticks are active in winter.
To photograph ticks, their life cycle stages and identifying features.
To put photographs on the project's web site.
To update the web site with results as they accrue.
To share the findings with interested individuals or bodies.
To thank the sponsors and collectors who have made the project possible.
Additional objective:
To ascertain the number
of Dartmoor ticks carrying Lyme disease
Preliminary results: 1 tick in 20 found to carry spirochaete bacteria
The following have moved to the Photos pages:
The IDSA Washington Lyme disease hearings and webcast links have moved to the Disease statistics page.
Dartmoor tick indices 1, 2, 3
* n/s - not sampled
1
Index = shortest distance between ticks assuming equal distribution on a square
grid. |
Sample slides .....
If you are interested, please see contact details below |
This project is a private undertaking by a retired scientist to investigate the number, distribution and variety of ticks occurring on and around Dartmoor. If you see ticks in the area in your work or leisure activities, please join in!
Ticks occur across the United Kingdom, from the highlands of Scotland to the centre of London. To see where they have been officially recorded, click on the interactive distribution maps for sheep tick (here) and hedgehog tick (here).
Some ticks harbour disease organisms that can seriously affect human and animal health. The incidence of e.g. Lyme disease, the commonest UK tick-borne disease, appears to be increasing (see here).
The trigger for the project was finding six
ticks on a dog after a day on Shaugh Moor, an area not then indicated for the tick on
the interactive tick maps that are linked below.
The links below go to the relevant page for each tick on the National Biodiversity Network website | ||
Argas vespertilionis | Short-legged bat tick, Blyborough tick, a soft tick | ü |
Dermacentor reticulatus | Ornate cow tick (meadow tick) | ü |
Hyalomma aegyptium | Tortoise tick | |
Ixodes frontalis includes Ixodes pari & Ixodes turdi |
Passerine tick | |
Ixodes hexagonus | Hedgehog tick | ü |
Ixodes lividus | Sand martin tick | |
Ixodes ricinus | Sheep tick, castor bean tick, pasture tick, wood tick | ü |
Ixodes trianguliceps | Vole tick, shrew tick | ü |
Ixodes uriae | Seabird tick | ü |
Ixodes ventalloi * | Rabbit tick, Isles of Scilly, Lundy & Dartmoor margins | ü |
Ixodes vespertilionis | Long-legged bat tick |
British ticks recorded in the
South Devon area (includes Dartmoor)
* Ixodes ventalloi moved
to this table following the identification of one tick
from the Ivybridge area by the Health Protection Agency's Tick Recording Scheme,
pending second official identification.
ü
Bites people
Argas reflexus | Pigeon tick, Canterbury tick, a soft tick | ü |
Hyalomma marginatum | Two-host tick | ü |
Haemaphysalis punctata | Red sheep tick, coastal red tick, | ü |
Ixodes acuminatus includes Ixodes dorriensmithi & Ixodes guernseyensis |
Southern rodent tick, in SW | ü |
Ixodes apronophorus includes Ixodes arvicolae |
Marsh tick, East Anglia | |
Ixodes arboricola includes Ixodes passericola |
Tree-hole tick, in SW | |
Ixodes caledonicus | Northern bird tick | |
Ixodes canisuga | Fox tick, Dog tick in SW | |
Ixodes rothschildi | Puffin tick, in SW | |
Ixodes unicavatus | Cormorant tick - coastal, maybe SW | |
Ornithodorus maritimus | Marine argasid, a soft tick, coasts - Irish | ü |
Rhipicephalus sanguineus | Kennel tick, brown dog tick | ü |
Other British ticks
Total of twenty-eight species names, some are aggregated together.
ü
Bites people - Information from Ticks - A lay guide to a human
hazard by George Hendry & Darrel Ho-Yen,
Mercat Press, Edinburgh,
1998, ISBN 1873644 809.
The hyperlinked species names in the
tables above link to interactive distribution maps
at the NBN - National Biodiversity Network
via the NBN Gateway
The gaps in the maps may reflect the lack of
recorders in those areas.
When I started this project, I knew of six
cases of Lyme disease among friends or friends of friends. I have recently heard
of a dog that died from Lyme disease. I have currently heard of 49 cases among
mostly local people.
Tick numbers on Dartmoor may be increasing. This could be due to an interplay of several factors:
milder winters, associated with global climate change
lower mortality of tick eggs in the soil
more ticks hatching from eggs
bracken not dying back as it used to
bracken has a 'head start' the following year
hill farm economics and land management
reduced swaling
allowing scrub and bracken to spread
fewer animals on the moor
more ticks looking for alternative hosts
reduced trampling
reduced grazing
more bracken.
It is said that ticks are increasing
everywhere, if this is true then Dartmoor users are perhaps suffering a "multiple whammy"
because of the factors above. The risk of tick-borne disease is foreseen as
increasing (here).
Further, there are more people using Dartmoor, so the risk of tick infections increases overall. It is reported that perhaps 5% to 30% of ticks are infected and that a tick needs to be attached for 24 hours to pass on any infection.
One problem is that some life cycle stages are small and can be easily overlooked. Also, removing a tick incorrectly, in a manner that stresses it, can induce regurgitation of pathogens into the victim's body thereby causing infection.
The project provides containers to keep ticks in for examination and measurement by microscopy and photography so as to identify types and life cycle stages.
A short data sheet is included, asking date and where and what the tick was found on: this entails 'ticking' tick-boxes!
The results will be freely available via this web site and should be of general interest to any person or body with an interest in Dartmoor. They will also be forwarded to the national Tick Recording Scheme (see more details here).
If you are interested or can help by carrying a small plastic container that weighs nothing and takes up little room, please contact:
Dr Keith Ryan BSc, PhD, CBIOL, FRSB, FRMS
11a Gower Ridge Road
Plymstock
Plymouth
PL9 9DR
Tel. 01752 405245
email:
(clickable image, anti-spam)
My qualifications
Thirty-five years running light and electron microscopes in biological
research,
1969-2004. Elected to Membership of the Institute of Biology, 1971, and
Fellowship of the Royal Microscopical Society, 1972. Award: Geoffrey Meek
Memorial Prize (Roy. Microsc. Soc.) for technical advances in microscopy, 1988.
Presentations: 72, Publications: 57.
Adult female common sheep tick, Ixodes ricinus
also called Castor
Bean
Tick, Pasture Tick & Wood Tick
Total body length - capitulum ("head") plus idiosoma ("body") is 3.5 mm.
The hard scutum (dorsal shield) does not cover
the whole body
as it does in the male tick,
this allows for body swelling during feeding prior to egg-laying.
"Deer Tick" is reserved for the American Ixodes scapularis
where it is also called the Black-legged TickSee also: Ticks page on Dartmoor CAM for more information about ticks and tick-borne diseases.
0 to 10 = 1.0 mm. Each small division = 0.1 mm.
Ixodes ricinus mouthparts.
Note the backward-pointing barbs on the central component (the 'hypostome')
between the two lateral palps, this anchors the tick during feeding.
This view is from the dorsal surface.
The relative sizes of stages in the Sheep Tick (Ixodes ricinus) life cycle
Key to the images larva (unfed, 0.75 mm) male (unfed, 2.1 mm) female (engorged, 8.72 mm) nymph (unfed, 1.34 mm) female (unfed, 3.2 mm) nymph (engorged, 3.6 mm) Composite of photographs taken at the same magnification (x6)
The scale marks on the left and bottom edges are 1 mm divisions on a steel ruler photographed at the same magnification (x6). The on-screen magnification is x17 on an 800x600 pixel screen display.(Engorged larvae, with 6 legs, can be seen on the Photos page, Ticks 59-64, or click HERE)
All tick visitors recorded by Stat Counter |
Web site created 26 June 2008
©2008-2014 Keith Ryan - All rights
reserved except for "Results" data
Please email for permissions incl.
data spreadsheet (Excel).